Condensed fuel redistribution system for internal-combustion engines



Nov. 16, 1954 F. w. ROSE 2,694,561

CONDENSED FUEL REDISTRIBUTION SYSTEM FOR INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINES Filed Aug. 6, 1952 IN V EN TOR. FREDERICK W. ROSE BY WMJ M 141 4 United States Patent CONDENSED FUEL REDISTRIBUTION SYSTEM F OR INTERNAL-COMBUSTION ENGINES Frederick William Rose, Cleveland, Ohio Application August 6, 1952, Serial N0. 302,876

1 Claim. (Cl. 261-78) This invention relates to fuel redistribution systems generally, and relates specifically to a device for collecting recondensed hydrocarbon fuels from the wall of a carburetor and reatomizing said collected fuel outside of the carburetor.

The object of this invention is to collect condensed gasoline from the internal walls of a carburetor and conduct the collected fuel to a reservoir outside the carburetor where it is held and prohibited from re-entering the carburetor until it is fully vaporized.

Other objects and a fuller understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the following description and claim, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure l is a sectional view through the mating parts of a carburetor and intake manifold, and the sectional view through the separate fuel collecting and distributing ring, and the nebulizing reservoir, taken along line 11 of the Figure 2;

Figure 2 is a sectional view taken along line 2-2 of Figure l; and

Figure 3 is an enlarged section through the nebulizer shown in Figure 2.

There are many different reatomizing devices in the art and available on the market for collecting condensed liquid fuel from the side of the carburetor conduit and injecting the collected liquid fuel into the center of the air stream in order to better distribute and aid in revaporizing the condensed fuel. It is well known that an excess of fuel is injected by conventional carburetors during the starting periods. Also, in cold weather a certain portion of the fuel mixture will recondense upon the side of the carburetors. Otherwise, the carburetor walls remain substantially dry unless the operator of the engine accelerates quickly, in which event most carburetors will inject a bonus supply of fuel into the air stream in order to aid in rapid acceleration, but a large portion of such fuel cannot be vaporized in the amount of air traveling through the passageway at the beginning of the acceleration period. All of these conditions result in a collection of liquid fuel upon the walls of the carburetor, and consequently liquid fuel is fed down into the intake manifold and will find its way into the nearest piston. An uneven balance of fuel thereby results wherein one piston is fed an over rich fuel supply if the leanest piston is fed a sufi'icient supply, or if the fuel supply is reduced to provide a proper mixture for the piston receiving the trickle of liquid fuel, then the mixture in the end piston is much too lean. Rough operation and lack of economy is the natural result of such liquid fuel conditions, as well as washing of the piston wall in the piston that receives the liquid fuel and dilution of the oil by the excess fuel. There is seldom Sufi'lCiCHt air volume in a particular piston to burn all of the liquid fuel thus fed to the particular one piston, and consequently the excess fuel is forced down along side the piston and into the crank case.

Although prior suggested devices for collecting the liquid fuel before it enters into the manifold do a certain portion of good, nevertheless, there is nothing to be certain that the fuel is not dumped in a liquid form back into the center of the air stream only to be speeded on its way into the manifold in liquid form. In extremely cold weather and under conditions of excessive fuel condensation there is little likelihood of all of the excess fuel being revaporized if it is simply led back into the air stream.

According to this invention, the fuel is gathered and taken out of the fuel system altogether until it is actually in a true vapor state before it is allowed to re-enter the fuel system. Figure l of the drawings is a more or less diagrammatic cross sectional illustration of such a system made according to this invention. In Figure 1 a plate ring 10 is illustrated clamped between the flange 11 of a carburetor 12 and a flange 13 of intake manifold 14. The thickness of the plate 10 is somewhat exaggerated with respect to the carburetor and intake parts in order to more clearly illustrate the structure of the preferred form of the invention. Suitable gaskets 15 and 16 seal the plate 10 between the flanges 11 and 13 in the usual manner. A plurality of bolts 17 hold the carburetor 12 and manifold 14 tightly clamped upon the plate 10. Generally, the bolts used in conventional carburetors will be sufliciently long, because the thickness of plate 10 need not be great.

The plate 10 has a central aperture 18, at least partially defined by an upwardly extending annular flange 19. The flange 19 is designed to lie close to the internal walls of carburetor 12, and consequently the aperture 18 is substantially as large as the internal bore of the carburetor 12 and will not materially reduce the effective cross sectional dimension of the carburetor for carrying the necessary air-fuel mixture to the intake manifold. The slight reduction that is accomplished only increases the speed of the air flowing through the aperture 18, which fact is useful although not necessary to the practice of the present invention. Note that the butterfly valve of the carburetor 12 is directed toward the collecting well formed by the internal wall of the carburetor and the adjacent wall of the flange 19, and thus aids in directing any liquid fuel in the center of the air conduit over to the collecting well.

This invention departs radically from prior art devices in that the collecting well is connected by a liquid fuel passageway 20 to the exterior of the flange. A boss 21 is formed on the peripheral edge of the flange 10 and is adapted to receive a fuel line coupling 22. The passageway 20 leads through the boss 21. A liquid fuel conduit 23 is connected to the fuel passageway 20 by means of the coupling 22.

A reservoir bottle 24 of any suitable material and shape, and located at any convenient position with respect to the carburetor, is provided to collect the liquid fuel. The fuel is led into the reservoir 24 through a manifold head 25 and liquid line 26.

The location of the reservoir 24 is unimportant except that it is outside of the fuel system of the engine. In some automotive engines the reservoir 24 may be located directly adjacent to the carburetor whereas in other automotive engines such, for example, as a V-8 engine the reservoir will be located well over 12 to 18 inches away. The distance is unimportant.

A vapor fuel passageway 27 is provided from said aperture 18 through the plate 10 to an exterior boss 28 where a vapor fuel conduit 29 is connected to the conduit 27 in the boss 28 by means of a coupling 30. The conduit 29 is attached to the manifold head 25 and communicates with a vapor passageway 31 and tube 32 collecting vapors from the upper portion of the reservoir bottle 24.

It will readily be apparent that the low pressure area in the aperture 18 of the plate 10 will attempt to draw vapor through the vapor fuel passageway 27 from the upper portion of the reservoir 24. The liquid fuel collected by the well formed by flange 19 will be drawn through the passageway .20 into the reservoir 24. The liquid fuel collected in the well will be subjected to pressure less than atmospheric simply by reason of being in the carburetor, but the pressure at the opening of fuel passageway 27 will be less because of its advantageous location in a moving portion of the air stream, and also because the air stream is accelerated as it passes through the aperture 18. This is the advantage previously referred to by this slight increase in speed of the mixture flowing through aperture 18. However, in cold weather particularly, the liquid fuel gathering in the reservoir 24 would vaporize quite slowly, and consequently the vapor passing back through the tube 32 would be quite small, and the tendency would be for the reservoir 24 to fill up to the opening of the tube 32 and go back to the carburetor asliquid fuel. Such tendency is completely avoided by providing a nebulizer, which is illustrated in the drawings by the reference character 40.

Figure 3 of the drawing has been provided in order to show the construction of the nebulizer ,40. It is, of course, understood that nebulizer 40 is only one method which may be employed for changing the liquid fuel into a gaseous mixture, and is therefore set forth for illustrative purposes only. A needle body 41 having a passageway 42 therethrough is threaded into the body of the nebulizer. The passageway 42 ends in a needle end 43 on the body 41.' A chamber 44 opens through the top of the nebulizer in an' opening 45. An air line passageway 33 leading from atmosphere is directed into the chamber 44 as illustrated. The nebulizer 40 is placed near the bottorn of the reservoir in order to dip the end of the passageway 42 into any liquid contained therein.

Because the opening 27 will create a pressure in the reservoir lower than atmospheric, a considerable flow of air will be drawn through the passageway 33. The air coming through the passageway 33 and entering into the chamber 44 will then-flow past the needle 43 and into the reservoir 24. In flowing past the needle 43, the air has a tendency, as well understood by those skilled in the art, of causing a reduced pressure area in the passageway 42 suflicient to draw liquid up through the passageway 42. Liquid thus drawn into the air stream passing in the reduced area between the needle 43 and the opening 45 will be substantially completely vaporized and directed upwardly toward the tube 32 in a fine mist form. However, in the event that the liquid fuel isnot completely changed to a fine mist form, a baffle 46 is placed in the path of the flow to intercept any liquid particles and cause the liquid to drop down into the reservoir once again. Only truly vaporized fuel will be able to take the path around the bafl'le 46 and enter into the tube 32 and thereafter be. carried into the air intake of the engin'e'through the opening 27.

It is recognized that prior art devices have been provided means'for collecting liquid fuel running along the side walls'of carburetors, and the prior art has illustrated nebulizing apparatuses quite similar to that in use in the drawings. However, the invention set forth in this description and claimed hereinafter resides in the fact that those who have attempted to redistribute the fuel have failed to recognize the fact that they often fail completely to accomplish the results they seek because of the direct injection of the fuel back into the center of the air stream. This is true even in devices wherein a second venturi is employed in an effort to revaporize the collected fuel. Recognition of this fact is, therefore, more important than the actual embodiment employed to accomplish the desired results. Accordingly, it is understood that the present disclosure of the preferred form has been made only by way of example and that numerous changes in the details of this specific construction for carrying out the basic concept and the combination and arrangement of parts may be altered without departing from the spirit and scope of the inventive concept as claimed herein.

What is claimed is:

A liquid fuel reatomizer comprising, liquid trap means mountable in the air-fuel duct of a carburetor, a closed liquid reservoir device locatable outside said carburetor, a liquid fuel line interconnecting said trap means and said reservoir, a vapor injection port into said air-fuel duct, a vapor line interconnecting the upper portion of said reservoir and said vapor injection port, means preventing liquid fuel droplets from entering said vapor line, an air-jet atomizer below said vapor line in the reservoir, and an air line from atmosphere to said air-jet atomizer.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,463,496 Bridgers July 31, 1923 2,083,752 Trussell June 15, 1937 2,382,681 Trier Aug. 14, 1945 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 138,100 Great Britain June 3, 1920 

